Rpos in the Spread Offense

2016

RPOsRPOs inin thethe SpreadSpread Offense

Mike Rowe Head Coach – Rocori Spartans 1/1/2016 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Defining the RPO ...... 3

Chapter 2: Inside Side Zone Bubble Screen ...... 8 Attack EMLOS and Overhang ...... 8 Zone plus Bubble Both Sides ...... 9 Jet Zone plus Bubble ...... 10 Zone Motion Bubble ...... 11 Condensed Formation Zone Bubble ...... 13 Chapter 3: Fast Screen ...... 15 Attacking the Boundary ...... 15 Unbalanced Boundary...... 15 Stack Formations ...... 16 Using Motion ...... 17 Attacking the Wide Side ...... 18 Chapter 4: Y-Stick Concept ...... 19 Y-Stick ...... 19 3x1 Stick Run Game Variations ...... 19 2x2 Variations ...... 22 Condensed Formation...... 23 Using Motion ...... 24 Chapter 5: Single Receiver Concepts ...... 26 Slant ...... 26 Speed Out ...... 27 Trey Speed Out ...... 29 Chapter 6: POP Concepts ...... 30 Power POP ...... 30 3x1 POP ...... 31 “Sneak” POP...... 31 Motion POP...... 32 Conclusion ...... 33 Chapter 7: Man Beaters ...... 34

Snag Concept ...... 34 3x1 Snag ...... 35 Wham Snag ...... 36 Texas Concept ...... 37 Texas Switch ...... 37 Chapter 8: QB RPOs ...... 39 QB Draw ...... 39 QB Leads ...... 40 Empty QB RPOs ...... 42 Q Power Y-Stick ...... 42 Conclusion ...... 43 Chapter 9: RPOs Evolving ...... 44 H-Slip Y-Stick ...... 44 Swing Curl ...... 45 Swing and POP ...... 46 Conclusion ...... 47 About the Author ...... 48

Chapter 1: Defining the RPO

I remember back in 2004 when I was introduced to the Spread Offense, when I look back at how my offensive philosophy has changed one thing has always remained the same. I have always had my quarterback read at least one defensive player on every play call whether it was a run or a pass call. Back then we primarily ran Inside Zone reading the defensive end (Diagram 1).

(Diagram 1-Inside Zone)

The run game continued to evolve as we began to read different players in the run game. The strategy was to find the best player on the defense and put him in a conflict where his decision would be always wrong. We wanted to make their best defensive player obsoletes in every game that we played in. We had a lot of success by running power midline, (Diagram-2) and it was a great compliment play to our offense because to the inside linebackers the running back was still taking his inside zone path.

(Diagram 2-Midline Power)

As time went on we started to add different options to our Inside Zone run game. Quarterbacks that were running true spread read were starting to get hurt because they were taking too many hits during the season. To help protect our quarterback we started tagging bubble (Diagram-3) and fast screen (Diagram-4) to eliminate hits, and to put the defensive overhang player in conflict. The purpose was to read two defenders in the same play. If the defensive linemen we were reading the zone dive, the quarterback could keep the football, and take his eyes to the overhang defender. If the defender was chasing the bubble the quarterback would find green grass and run. If the overhang player was playing QB then we had numbers to the screen side, and the quarterback would throw the bubble or quick screen. The spread triple option was continuing to evolve and was starting to add more wrinkles and read different defenders and different levels.

(Diagram-3 Bubble)

(Diagram-4 Fast Screen)

In 2012 I had a very athletic quarterback who was smart and could throw that ball very well. One of the schemes defenses were starting to use to defend us was 2 Dog Coverage. 2 Dog Coverage is when you have 2 defenders playing cover two and 5 defenders playing man to man underneath. We wanted to develop an answer to burn teams when they decided to play this coverage. The answer we came up with was building in a QB draw into our pass protection. This allowed us on 3rd and long down and distances to take what the defense was giving us. (Diagram 5). This was the first time our program was using the pass play to set up a run read. What I liked about this concept was we didn’t need to slow down the tempo and run a check with me on 3rd down. We were confident that if they blitzed we had a pass concept called that could beat cover 0, or if they drop everyone back our quarterback would go through his progressions and escape if nothing was there.

(Diagram 5-Built in Draw) Everyone eventually catches up and defenses have done a fantastic job of taking away the quarterback run game in the spread option run game. Teams will send their defensive end to play dive as soon as the tackle steps down and wrap their inside linebacker, or insert a safety to defend the quarterback (Diagram-6).

(Diagram 6-Defense vs. IZ)

This brings us to the reason our program has decided to incorporate RPOs into our offense. Teams for many years have been using the bubble and fast screen and tagging them into their run game. The two issues I had were there was only a big play if a defensive player missed a tackle, and we really only stressed the defense horizontally. I was searching for a play that could create a big vertical shot if the defense was over playing our run game. Baylor University was the first team I remember using true Run/Pass/Options. They were running one back power and putting the inside linebacker into a conflict (Diagram-7). Does the linebacker take on the pulling guard, or drop back into hook zone coverage responsibilities? This was going against everything linebackers had ever been 6 Mike Rowe © 2016 All Rights Reserved taught and was creating an explosive play better than any play action pass on first down could ever do.

(Diagram 7-Baylor RPO)

This book is going to cover the many different RPOs that are currently changing the game of college and high school football. I am not an expert by any means, but I am going to take you on a journey of how we install and incorporate these plays into our play calling system.